V— 



5/3 





'^T ADDRESSES 



Copy 1 




/ 

BY Ills EXCELLENCY 



GOVERNOR JOHN A. ANDREW, 



HON. EDWARD EYERETT, 



1I0^\ B. F. THOMAS, 



HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, 



DELIVERED AT THE MASS MEETING IN AID OF RECRUITING, HELD ON THE 

COMMON UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE COMMITTEE OF 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY, 



ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1862. 



BOSTON: 

J. E. FARWELL AND COMPANY, CITY PRINTERS, 
No. 37 CoNGRRSS Street. 

18 2. 



^^yi e. 



-272^>t^ 



ADDRESSES 



BY HIS EXCELLENCY 



CtOVERNOR^JOHN a. ANDREW, 



HON. EDWAED EVERETT 



HO]N". B. F. THOMAS, 



HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP, 



DELIVERED AT THE MASS MEETING IN AID OF EECEUITING, HELD ON THE 

COMMON UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE COMMITTEE OF 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY, 



y. 



ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 1862. 






BOSTON : 

J. E. FARWELL AND COMPANY, CITY PRINTERS, 

No. 37 Congress Street. 

18 6 2. 



^ 



ADDRESSES. 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR ANDREW 



Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : 

I greet this patriotic and enthusiastic 
gathering of uncounted thousands of the 
people of ]\Iassachusetts with the most cor- 
dial and grateful homage. I would that I 
might coin my very heart into words, that 
by some fitting phrase, by some power of 
real, inspiring eloquence, I might speak to 
you, heart to heart, man to man, citizen to 
citizen, brother to brother, — the last word 
perhaps it may be my fortune to utter before 
the grand army of Massachusetts now called 
from peaceful life to join their gallant breth- 
ren in the field shall march from our reverend 
and holy soil. 

You are here, drafting yourselves together 
at the call, — the gathering of the clans of 
liberty, the heroic sons, the patriotic citizens 
of jNlassachusetts, parading yourselves to- 
gether in voluntary pageant, preliminary to 
the voluntary march. 

But I do not see in this long array of stal- 
wart men, I do not perceive in these kind- 
ling eyes and on these glowing cheeks, the 
mere desire to stimulate by banners and by 
grand array the zeal and patriotism of other 
men. I perceive in it the spontaneous ex- 
pression of individual purpose and of a com- 
bined and gathering will. These bands who 
have passed before our sight are citizens 
of Massachusetts who have already drawn 
themselves, I trust, to join the army, where 
soon they will draw the sword and point the 
bayonet. 

It is your task, your duty and mine, each 
after the measure of his capacity in the 
sphere in which Providence may place us, 
not merely to aid in saving the Union, to 
restore to its wonted sway the starry banner 



of this Eepublic from the northern border 
down the Mexican Gulf, and from the At- 
lantic shore to the Pacific sea, but to fight a 
battle, to engage in a great campaign where 
the principles of democratic government are 
the stake for which we play ; not simply for 
the perpetuity of institutions formed by 
man's hands or framed by the scheming 
brain ; not merely for the preservation of our 
form of government, liberal and free ; not 
merely for the perpetuity of holy and patri- 
otic memories in the past ; but for the pres- 
ervation and perpetuation of all that makes 
a people free, a people happy, a nation 
glorious. 

AVe stand as did the band of Leonidas, 
the Spartan, just where the hordes are pour- 
ing down to destroy not merely Greece, but 
to destroy civilization and to bury liberty. 
This is a historic hour, fraught with the des- 
tinies of a nation, and more than a nation, 
— with the destinies of humanity. Whoso 
sheds a drop of patriotic blood, whoso strikes 
a patriotic blow beneath this flag and for the 
support of the principles and ideas that ban- 
ner symbolizes, strikes for liberty and for 
man. 

All over the earth, wherever under the 
blessed sunshine of the sky man mourns be- 
neath the yoke of bondage, wherever privi- 
lege strikes down and tramples with its iron 
hoof upon the neck of man, wherever right 
is denied, and power usurps its throne, wher- 
ever hope with waiting eye but fond, aspiring 
heart looks up to God, praying for the houf 
when mankind shall rise to the dignity of 
its immortal nature, there the waiting heart 
yearns towards this western world of ours, 
the only home on this bright green earth 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOR ANDREW. 



where with equal right, man standing by 
his brother, holds with equal hand his own 
equal share of the power of government and 
the rights of the nation. 

Men in other days and times have fought 
for kingdoms, — you fight, each man for 
himself. Men in other lands may fight for 
crowns, — each man here fights for the crown 
of his own honor and for the ensign of his 
own dignity and power. Whether born upon 
our soil or in other lands and wandering 
here, you are citizens of this united govern- 
ment, equally sharing in the heritage of 
freedom. Its opportunities and blessings 
belong to you all. And they who do not 
include in their calculations of the present 
or of the future, this element of the saga- 
cious sense and intuitive understanding of 
this people of their rights and their capacity 
to maintain them, have never understood 
the people, nor ever appreciated those prin- 
ciples of liberty which we inherit from our 
fathers, and which under the providence of 
God we mean to hold. 

And now whoever may prophesy evil, 
whoever may cast a shadow over our future, 
wherever any man's hope may wane, and 
whosoever's heart may quail, I have no sym- 
pathy with him, I have no share in his prog- 
nostications of evil, I neither seek his coun- 
sel, and I spurn him from mine. Whatsoever 
people are worthy to be saved by their own 
right hands are able to be saved ; and I see 
to-day here before me the sure sign, and a 
certain prophecy, of the early deliverance of 
our people and the early freedom of our 
land from the curse which now appals my 
heart and casts its awful shadow over you 
all in this grand, enthusiastic, and happy 
gathering of the people themselves. 

It needs not me to tell you here, why from 
out your homes, why from all the workshops 
of this dear old Boston, you have issued, 
shutting your doors behind you, that you 
might give this undivided day to the cause 
of your country. It is because, with one 
unanimous consent, with one voice, this peo- 



ple have dedicated themselves for their own 
salvation. What care we for the comforts 
piled up to be scattered, as we trusted, as 
an inheritance to our children ? What care 
we for busy industry, for private ambition, 
or personal aspiration, or hope, or family, or 
friends, in the face of the great woe laid 
upon us all, in the spirit of the Apostle, 
if we give not ourselves to these things ? 

And now, sirs, it is only that I might 
venture to speak one single word of hope 
and encouragement, that I tore myself away 
from cares and duties which forbid me the 
opportunity of preparation for speech, and I 
am here this afternoon much more that I 
might drink in from the warm breath of 
your hearty zeal and patriotism, an encour- 
agement which all who labor daily in this 
cause do so much need. When the flesh is 
weak and weary and faint, how it thrills the 
heart and stimulates the courage and hope 
of man, to feel the beating heart of a sym- 
pathetic brother. 

There is no one of you whose hand, I 
know if I- grasped it, would not be warm, 
whose words, if they could be whispered in 
my ear alone would not be " God bless 
you ! " as mine would be " God bless you, 
my brother ! " for all that you do for all of 
us and for all our children. 

But I confess to you, my friends, that I 
can hardly say that — beautiful and capti- 
vating and inspiring as this scene is — I can 
hardly say my heart is here. It is far away, 
where your friends are to-day, down by the 
waters of the Kappahannock, on the soil of 
that Virginia which your brothers' blood has 
made sacred forever. Fond memory carries 
us with them, our brothers and our friends, 
who are to-day upon the soil of the Old Do- 
minion, holding up the flag of the country, 
the honor of the nation, the hopes, the 
rights, and dignity of us all. Who of us, this 
afternoon, has made up his mind to follow 
them ? AVho shall pitch his white tent upon 
the banks of the Eappahannock and march 
wherever the army of Virginia marches, 



SPEECH OF GOVEENOR ANDEEW. 



beneath the flag of the Republic, to carry 
the principles it symbolizes and the rights it 
■would perpetuate ? All this will have been 
wasted and worse than lost if we do not go. 
What will be the value of all this gath- 
ering of the people if this gathering stays 
at home? What will avail the shouts that 
have rung in our ears this afternoon, if they 
do not reach the Massachusetts men, the 
Pennsylvania men, the Indiana and Wis- 
consin soldiers, the soldiers of the Union 
everywhere ? When the battle is thick and 
the sabres fall fast ; when the shouts of the 
onset arc ringing over the fields ; when the 
trampling of the horses are adding confusion 
to the noise of the battle ; and when gar- 
ments bathed in blood are bestrewing the 
plain ; when your brothers, gathering to- 
gether with perhaps decimated ranks, fight- 
ing with unequal numbers against the savage 
foe, threateaing them with death on the 
field even though prisoners of war, or death 
in the dreary dungeons — of what avail to 
them, to tliis cause, to the wives and chil- 
dren left at home by them — of what use to 
our future, if we all stay here and do not 
arise and hurry to their aid? Oh, sir, I 
say that the hour has come when it is the 
duty of every man to have a solemn settle- 
ment between his heart and God. If lib- 
erty is worth anything, if rights are worth 
anything, the hour is come when we must 
have a settlement in heaven, or we have no 
right to be on earth. I do not appeal to 
any sentiment of wild enthusiasm. 1 would 
cast behind me the sentiment of mere am- 
bition ; I would rise higher than patriotism 
itself, if it is possible to rise higher than 
patriotism when it is sublimed by virtue ; I 
would rise to the highest inspiration of the 
most solemn hour, and appeal to this peo- 
ple — the sons of reverend sires, the sons of 
pious mothers who have dedicated them in 
prayer to God, and whose spirit hovers over 
this scene to-day. I would appeal to you 
all, by every memory, by every hope, by 
every inspiration of truth and duty, by every 



idea sacred to the heart of man, to settle 
this question, each for himself, to-night — 
What can I and what ouyht I most to do to 
save this bleeding country and restore the star 
of peace ? 

I have no right or power to dictate the 
law of duty to any man — not even the 
humblest man who does me the honor to lis- 
ten to my voice ; but I appeal to him. Judge 
ye for yourselves what is right. Fair boy, 
just entering upon the prime of early man- 
hood, the down upon your lip, and youth 
and beauty upon your cheek, magnetism in 
your eyes, valor in your heart — why linger 
you here when those dear brothers of ours 
linger in the hellish dungeons of Virginia ? 
What holds you here while Savage and 
Quincy and their compatriots are prisoners 
in Eichmond ? Why linger you here when 
the blood of Abbott and Gary and ten thou- 
sand of our boys is unavenged ? 

What keeps you here while that flag is 
insulted, and the memory of your fathers 
spurned, the rights of your people threaten- 
ed, the dignity and honor of your country 
debased, the hopes of all your future, your 
children's children, down to the latest hour 
of coming time, trampled under foot ? Oh, 
my God ! what keeps this people from one 
sudden, one spontaneous, one fiery and burst- 
ing enthusiasm which should leave no man 
behind hardly to till the ground and watch 
the kiue within the stall until this blood 
shall be avenged, until this foul wrong shall 
be blotted out, until this terrible rebellion 
shall be put down by force of arms which 
no valor can resist, by the mighty masses of 
the people against which no powers on earth 
can stand, and against which even the gates 
of hell itself cannot prevail. 

Well, sir, it is going to be done. It will 
be done, for I see it in your eyes : the resolve 
mantles on your cheeks ; it bursts in hur- 
rahs from your lips, and it will be done. 
It will be done once and for all time, and the 
cursed cause of all this wrong shall be sent 
howling back to the den from which slavery 



SPEECH OF GOVERNOK ANDREW. 



was spawned, to curse the earth no more 
forever. Yes, sir ; and when the American 
people, wiser than policy, because the wis- 
dom of honest hearts is combined with the 
wisdom of clear heads ; when the wisdom of 
the American people, greater than the wis- 
dom of politicians, shall have asserted itself 
in tones no mortal can mistake, the voice 
shall be heard not merely in the White 
House at Washington, where is reflected the 
will of the people, but it shall be heard in 
the halls of the enemy, and the members of 
Jefferson Davis shall quiver with unwonted 
anguish, as he sees, like Belshazzar of old, 
the handwriting upon the wall. 

You shall write the doom of slavery, as 
you write the doom of this rebellion, in the 
blood you have poured out from the living 
veins and bleeding hearts of Massachusetts 
men — a price of blood worth more than all 
possible right to all the bondmen if right there 
can be in property accursed of heaven — 
whoever toiled on earth or sighed beneath 
the sun. How much more shall we pay ? I 
would like to know how many more Massa- 
chusetts boys are to lie down in death on the 
gory plain before the blow shall be struck 
which gives liberty to you, which gives a fu- 
ture to your country, as it breaks the chains 
of the bondman. I never supposed that 
such talk as that was heresy on Boston Com- 
mon, and whether it is or not I dare to utter 
it, for I spurn the friendship of any man 
who would not have me faithful to the truth. 
As God has spoken to my heart, so speak I 
to you. 

But this is not an afternoon for talk ; it is 
an afternoon for work. It is an hour for 
stalwart arms to strike. And now, sirs, go 
home, I pray you ; sleep one night upon 
your pillows in the quiet peace of a New 
England home, dedicate yourselves in your 
evening prayer and your morning orison to 
Clod and to your country, bind duty upon 
your foreheads, bear the sacred trust in your 
hearts, as the Jews of old did the tables of 



the law in the ark of the covenant, sacred, 
dear, immortal as your souls forever, and 
then go forth to join the army of your breth- 
ren, enroll your names upon the immortal 
scroll which bears the record, splendid, beau- 
tiful sometimes as the record of a noble life, 
and sometimes as the record of the heroic 
death of the thousands of your brethren who 
have already devoted themselves to this war. 
Those who stay behind shall watch over 
those with whom you leave your hearts. 
They who remain behind shall guard the 
altar of your homes, and believe me, fellow- 
citizens, trust us that we will be faithful to 
the sacred charge you leave with us. 

There is to be no draft, I trust, in Massa- 
chusetts. No conscripts in the old Bay 
State. There is to be no draft in the old 
battle-field, save the draft which the Lord 
himself makes upon willing hearts answered 
by the voluntary action of more willing 
hands. They are coming at the call of the 
country and of duty from all the shore ; from 
the mountains of Berkshire — the Switzer- 
land of Massachusetts — they come down 
in teeming thousands from the hill-tops ; 
from the valley of the Connecticut they 
spring up like the bearded corn in the har- 
vest time ; from the hills of Worcester they 
are pouring down to the encampments re- 
cruits of yeomen ; and all along the coast 
from Northern Essex to where the waters 
kiss the shore and waft across the bay, they 
are coming on. 

Almost all our first quota is reported filled. 
Thousands more of the second demand have 
already subscribed their names, many of 
them have already placed themselves in camp, 
and I am straining with those who surround 
me engaged in the Executive duties of the 
Commonwealth, every nerve, and using every 
capacity within our reach, in order to march 
to the field on Monday, the first day of Sep- 
tember, if that be possible, so that it shall 
reach AVashington on the very day on which 
the Presidential draft is proclaimed, the gal- 



SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 



lant old Sixth Eegiment, of Baltimore mem- 
oiy. Its ranks are rapidly filling up. I 
believe it is entitled to the honor of being 
the first militia regiment of New England 
that will march to the walls of the Capitol 
under this new requisition. 

Go you there if you choose, join the Cadet 
Eegiment if you prefer, the Second Regi- 



ment of Militia if you like it better, the 
Second Battalion or the Fourth, if they con- 
tain any whose society you like. But go 
somewhere. Go now, go together all of you, 
and heaven bless you, save and preserve our 
country, and be with our children forever, 
as God has been with our fathers until 
now. 



SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 



I REJOICE, fellow-citizens, to behold this 
mighty throng. It shows that the spirit of 
our fathers is again abroad in the land, and 
that you are resolved that the Union, which 
they established, shall not be rent asunder ; 
that the mildest and most beneficent gov- 
ernment on earth shall not be sacrificed to 
the ambition of a few disappointed aspi- 
rants to office. We have now reached not 
only the most important week in the his- 
tory of the war up to the present time, 
but the week which will most powerfully in- 
fluence the future. The fate of this year's 
campaign depends upon the manner in which 
the call of the President is responded to by 
the people, and this campaign will go far to 
settle the question, whether we are to have 
a short or a long war. 

It is a moment, fellow-citizens, of vast 
importance, pregnant with consequences, not 
merely for us, but for our latest posterity. 
Everything is at stake, for which your 
fathers and your forefathers counselled, 
and toiled, and bled, from the day that the 
Pilgrims crossed the ocean, through the long 
years of colonial trial, the sharp struggle of 
the Eevolution, the languor of the old Con- 
federation, down to that happy consumma- 
tion, the adoption of the Constitution of the 
United States. All, all is now at stake. 
Shall this noblest fabric of human wisdom 
be allowed to crumble into miserable frag- 
ments, or shall it be sustained through this 
dark hour of trial ? shall it sink into early 
and ignominious decay, or shall it stand in 



its majesty and beauty for ages, so that our 
children and our children's children shall 
be enabled to say, " The rain descended, and 
the floods came, and the winds blew, and 
beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it 
was founded upon a rock?" 

There are three courses, — three only, — 
with respect to the war, which can by possi- 
bility be pursued by the Government and 
loyal people of the Union, and as far as 
depends upon us, we are called to choose 
this week between them. 

We may, first, admit that we are unable 
to carry on the war, retire baffled and dis- 
comfited from the attempt, and sue for 
peace. Are you ready for that? Or, second, 
we may furnish the Government with tardy 
and inadequate supplies, just enough to 
enable it, upon the whole, to hold our own ; 
to gain a victory here, to suffier a repulse 
there ; to capture strong fortresses and pop- 
ulous cities one day, only to have railroad 
passenger cars fired into, and invalid offi- 
cers shot in their ambulances by murderous 
guerillas the next day, and so let the con- 
test drag on for twenty or thirty years, like 
the wars of the French Eevolution, the wars 
of the Commonwealth in England, or the 
Thirty Years' War in Germany ; or third, we 
may give the Government, at whatever cost, 
the means Avhich it requires, to bring the 
contest to a prompt and triumphant close. 
Is not this last the dictate of humanity ; is 
not this, my fellow- citizens, your wish and 
firm resolve ? 



SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 



Now I say, fellow-citizens, it depends 
upon the manner in which the President's 
call for reinforcements is responded to, 
which of these three modes of dealing with 
the war shall prevail. 

Let us look at them for a moment. There 
can, I need scarce say, be no hesitation be- 
tween a long and a short war ; but ought 
we not to prefer the first-named course to 
either? Ought we not to yield the de- 
mands of secession, and sue for peace? In 
order to answer that question, we must ask 
another, what are those demands, — what 
are the conditions of such a peace ? What 
do the leaders of secession claim of us ? Let 
me point out to you for a moment, fellow- 
citizens, their stupendous audacity. 

Eighteen months ago the Government of 
the United States extended its undisputed 
constitutional rule from the northeastern 
corner of Maine to the mouth of the Ilio 
Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Ocean, — one might almost say from "sea 
to sea and from the river to the ends of the 
earth ; " an area of twenty-one degrees of 
latitude and sixty of lougit«de. Through- 
out this mighty domain, there was not a cit- 
izen but was bound by his allegiance, and 
if he was an ofiicer, military or naval, or a 
magistrate of the Union or the State, by 
his oath, to obey the Constitution and Laws 
of the United States, "anything in the 
constitution and laws of any State to the 
contrary notwithstanding." Over all this 
vast territory the constitutional government 
of the United States bore lawful sway, just 
as fully as the constitutional government of 
England bears lawful sway throughout the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ire- 
land. On the 6th of November, 1860, a 
constitutional majority of the people thought 
fit to pass by John C. Breckenridge, who 
was offered to them as a candidate of the 
southern wing of the democracy, and to 
elect Abraham Lincoln as the President of 
the United States. Lor this high crime and 
misdemeanor on our part, eleven Southern 



States, (although by entering into the elec- 
tion they were bound in honor to abide its 
result,) have thought proper to declare them- 
selves an independent, foreign, and belliger- 
ent power, and have ordered and are now 
ordering at the mouth of the cannon, the 
loyal people of the United States, to give up 
to this foreign power half our territory ; half 
our sea-coast and the fortresses that defend 
it and protect its navigation ; the entrance 
to our iidand seas; and the mouth and a 
thousand miles of the lower course of the 
mighty rivers which penetrate to the heart 
of that portion of the country which we are 
graciously permitted, during good behavior 
of course, to retain. Though we have been 
on the point of war with England more than 
once within twenty-five years, and that 
under a southern lead, for some wretched 
fragments of unsettled territory on the out- 
skirts of the Union, we are now summoned 
to give up to a foreign and hostile power a 
domain half as large as Europe, because Mr. 
John 0. Breckenridge was not elected Presi- 
dent of the United States, and in order that 
Mr. Jefferson Davis may erjoy the blood- 
stained and guilty honor of presiding over 
the Southern Confederacy. 

But again, see what a wreck secession 
calls upon us to make of this noble fabric of 
confederate republicanism. Our fathers in 
1789 framed a Constitution of Government 
for the purpose, among other high aims of 
civil polity, of establishing " a more perfect 
Union." The wisest and best of men co- 
operated in the undertaking ; Heaven smiled 
on the work. The people of thirteen States 
then existing ratified, adopted, and declared 
it the law of the lantl. The country, deso- 
lated by the war of the Eevolution, sprang 
into new life beneath its genial influence, as 
the frozen clods arc clothed with verdure be- 
neath the gentle showers of April. Twenty- 
one States have since grown up within our 
territorial limits, and have thought it a 
blessing and an honor to be joined to the 
great family of republics. For seventy-two 



SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 



9 



years since it went into operation, the coun- 
try has enjoyed under this Constitution an 
amount of prosperity without a parallel in 
the history of the world. Cities have sprung 
up like an exhalation from the soil ; the sav- 
age wilderness has been turned into a wheat 
field as by a miracle ; an immigration, count- 
ed not by hundreds or thousands, but by 
millions, of which there is no other example 
in the annals of mankind, bears witness to 
the good report which has gone forth of us 
to the nations. In these seventy-two years 
not a drop of blood has been shed for a po- 
litical offence, and making fair allowance for 
the human frailties of men and of nations, 
and especially remembering that the one great 
" spot upon the vestal robe" of the Union, 
" the worse for what it soils," was placed 
and kept there under the old colonial rule, 
our country has really been what, thanks to 
secession it is now derisively termed, " the 
Model Eepublic ; " the noblest attempt ever 
made by man to combine the equal home- 
bred blessings of a small State with the 
strength and influence of a great Empire. 
Shall we allow secession to make a deplora- 
ble wreck of this noble framework of Gov- 
ernment? Will we permit the Union of the 
States to be sacrificed, — • that Constitution 
which was framed by some of the wisest and 
best men that ever lived, to be trampled un- 
der foot, in order to gratify the aspirations 
to office of eight or ten disappointed south- 
ern politicians? 

But again. Secession bids us not only 
cede to her half the territory of the United 
States, and abrogates at one blow the Con- 
stitution of Government that held them to- 
gether, but, in place of this powerful and 
prosperous Union, now strong enough for ev- 
eiy legitimate object of domestic or foreign 
polity, it substitutes at once and of necessity 
two independent and hostile confederacies, 
separated by no natural boundary, sure to be 
involved in eternal border wars, besides car- 
rying in their bosoms the fatal germ of still 
further and still more ruinous disintegration. 



All history, all analogy teaches us that if we 
could patch up a peace to-morrow with the 
rebel States, it would be but a temporary 
ti'uce, lasting just so long, and no longer, as 
might be necessary for them to find a pre- 
text for a new war of aggression and outrage. 
Their leaders tell you that they hate, de- 
spise, and loathe you ; and they have shown 
you what paltry and imaginary grievances 
they consider a sufiicient cause of war. How 
is it possible that you can ever live in peace 
with them, if this first trial of strength, which 
has been forced upon us is decided in their 
favor ? If they violate the obligations of the 
Constitution and the sanctity of oaths, what 
respect are they going to pay to the faith of 
treaties ? If they fly to arms because an 
election, in which they took equal part, has 
been decided against them, how can we hope 
to conduct with them, on amicable terms, the 
great and often perplexed relations, of inde- 
pendent States? 

But secession not only makes this whole- 
sale havoc of the Constitution and the Un- 
ion, it repeals the Declaration of Independ- 
ence. I need not say that all the States of 
this Union were, four fifths of a century ago, 
Colonial dependencies of the great powers of 
Europe. It is not yet eighty years since 
England acknowledged the Independence of 
the old Thirteen States. It is less than 
sixty years since France ceded to us Louisi- 
ana and all the mighty region between the 
Mississippi and the Pacific. It is forty years 
only since Spain ceded to us the Eloridas ; 
and fourteen years only since Mexico, — at 
this moment involved in war with the great 
powers of Europe and in imminent danger of 
losing her independence in deed if not in 
word, — acknowledged our claim to Texas. 
If we recognize secession we admit the right, 
not only of the entire Southern Confederacy 
so called, but of each and every member 
of it, to resume at pleasure its allegiance to 
the ancient government, and thus plant a 
European colonial jurisdiction all along our 
southern frontier. So completely has the 



10 



SPEECH OF HON. EDWAED EVERETT. 



frenzy of the hour extinguished every spark 
of patriotism in the bosom of their leaders, 
that some of them have declared their pref- 
erence of a foreign sceptre over the gentle 
and beneficent sway of the Constitution of 
the United States. But whether they desire 
it or not, whether this madness extends to 
the many, or, as we may charitably hope, is 
confined to the few, the recolonization of the 
States of the South by their former European 
masters, is an event, if secession should pros- 
per, highly probable, in fact all but certain, 
in reference to some of them ; and in refer- 
ence to none of them greatly otherwise. 
Break up the Union ; let th« two great sec- 
tions of the country hamstring each other 
with the two-edged sword of border war, 
and what sufficient protection would Texas 
and Florida have against Spain, or Louisiana 
against France, or any of them against Eng- 
land? There is not one of them, if left to 
themselves and involved in war with a for- 
eign power, whose independence would be 
worth a year's purchase. Nothing has so 
much amazed me in all these disastrous com- 
plications, as the fact that men of capacity 
and political experience at the South, and 
who aspire to the name of patriots and states- 
men, should not perceive that in abdicating 
their position as integral members of a strong 
government, and especially one that wields 
a respectable naval force, they place them- 
selves not only at the mercy of the great 
maritime powers of Europe, but at the mercy 
of any government able to send half a dozen 
iron clad steamers to sea. Break down the 
Union as a great military and naval power, 
and what protection is left for their alluvial 
shores ? Are not the arms which are long 
enough to reach from London, Paris, and 
Madrid, to Calcutta and the Philippine Isl- 
ands, and Tahiti, and New Zealand, long 
enough to stretch to Charleston, and Pensa- 
cola, and Galveston, and New Orleans ? 

But we have not yet got to the bottom 
of the cup of humiliation, which secession 
places to our lips. Most great commercial 



and naval States think that, in addition to 
the fortresses which guard their home ports, 
it is necessary to possess some distant har- 
bors of refuge, and certain remoter stations, 
that protect the pathway of their foreign 
trade. England would as soon allow Ply- 
mouth or Portsmouth to be wrested from her 
by a foreign power, as she would Gibraltar, 
or Malta, or Aden, or Singapore, or Hong 
Kong, or Vancouver's Island. Now the 
seceding States not only claim the right to 
withdraw from the Union, which they have 
no more right to do than Scotland or Ireland 
has to withdraw from the Union with Eng- 
land, but they claim the right to carry with 
them the whole line of fortresses which 
guard our southern coast, the Florida Chan- 
nel, the Gulf of Mexico, and the mouth of 
the Mississippi ; fortresses required for the 
safety of our commerce ; built on lands 
purchased and paid for by the General Gov- 
ernment, and on islands and sites, of which 
the jurisdiction has been ceded to the United 
States. Nay, they claim the right to open 
and shut at pleasure the outlet of the Ohio, 
the Mississippi, and the Missouri — the most 
magnificent system of internal navigation on 
the face of the globe. Acknowledge secession, 
and not a drove of mules could be sent down 
from Kentucky, nor a hogshead of tobacco 
from St. Louis, nor a bale of furs from the 
Upper Missouri, nor a barrel of pork from 
Cincinnati, nor a keg of nails from Pitts- 
burgh, nor a pig of lead from Galena or 
Dubuque, nor a sack of wheat from Daven- 
port, but by the gracious leave of this alien 
power. 

Finally, fellow-citizens, there is a drop of 
still greater bitterness in the chalice. The 
triumph of secession involves consequences 
more painful than any sacrifice of our own 
material or political interests. Not only are 
a majority of the inhabitants of the border 
Slave States firmly attached to the Union, 
but the mountain ridge that traverses the 
South, from Maryland almost to the Gulf, is 
inhabited by an industrious and frugal pop- 



SPEECH OF HON. EDWARD EVERETT. 



11 



ulation wlio support themselves mainly hj 
the free labor of their own hands. "Western 
Virginia, East Tennessee, and Western North 
Carolina, and Northern Alabama have little 
interest in slavery, and no sympathy with 
the war which it has forced upon the country. 
Their citizens consequently have been and 
are cruelly persecuted by the military des- 
potism which now rules the South with a 
rod of iron. Mr. Davis, in his late mes- 
sage, affects to reproach the Grovernment of 
the United States and its generals in com- 
mand with making war upon peaceful private 
individuals. It is the familiar artifice of 
wrongdoers to charge upon others the crimes 
of which they arc themselves guilty. Quis 
tulerit Gracchos de scdltloiie qucrentes ? For 
years past, and in profound peace, a man or 
woman, who should have expressed at the 
South opinions adverse to slavery, would 
have done it at the risk of life. A Senator 
from one of the Southern States made it a 
matter of boast, that abolitionists coming 
among them, (meaning thereby every north- 
ern man not friendly to slavery,) hung like 
ripe fruit on the trees. Before Virginia had 
seceded, and while her Ordinance of Seces- 
sion was pending before the people, Mr. 
Senator Mason published a letter on the 
Itjth May, ISGl, with his name, in answer 
to the inquiries addressed to him, as to the 
position of those citizens whose principles 
would not allow them to vote to separate 
Virginia from the United States. " If they 
retain such opinions," says the merciful Sen- 
ator, " thei/ must leave the State/" Yes, 
dare to defy the oligarchy at Eichmond and 
vote against separating from the Union, be- 
queathed to you by your Washington as your 
dearest inheritance, and we banish you from 
the State. This wholesale sentence of exile 
was pronounced before the iniquity of se- 
cession was consummated, and against the 
inhabitants of a third part of the territory 
of the State, men guilty of no crime but 
that of entertaining certain "opinions." Nor 
is this all ; army after army was sent into 
Western Virginia last year to execute the 



decree of proscription ; her villages were 
burned, her fields wasted, and some of her 
prominent citizens dragged to Richmond and 
immured in a felon's jail. The same state 
of things exists in East Tennessee. Wher- 
ever throughout the South a Union man 
ventures to avow himself, the common jail, 
the scourge, sometimes the halter, is his 
fate. I know the press at the South aftects 
to deny the truth of Parson Brownlow's 
statements. I own I could not myself at 
first believe that such atrocities could have 
been practised by men professing to be 
Christians, nay, by persons in the highest 
civil and military stations. But I am well 
persuaded, from numerous other and inde- 
pendent sources of information, that his 
accounts are true. Mr. Benjamin, the Con- 
federate Secretary of State, by a letter of 
the 25th of last November, addressed to the 
officer in command at Knosville, directs that 
all " prisoners of war taken among tiie 
traitors of East Tennessee," (so he desig- 
nates the great mass of the loyal people of 
that region,) " who can be identified as hav- 
ing been engaged in bridge-burning, are to 
be tried summarily by drum-head court-mar- 
tial, and, if found guilty, executed on the 
spot by hanging. It would be well to leave 
their bodies hanging in the vicinity of the 
burned bridges ! " This most humane sec- 
retary seems to have forgotten, that one of 
the first acts of his seceding friends in Bal- 
timore was to burn the bridges on the Phil- 
adelphia and Baltimore Eailroad, to prevent 
the troops of the United States from march- 
ing to the defence of Washington. It is 
needless to say that this cruel order was as 
cruelly executed ; while throughout the South 
thousands of Union men have leen driven 
into exile, and other thousands are forced 
into the rebel army, or are languishing in 
prison, or fleeing before their pursuers to the 
caves in the mountains. If we now shrink 
discomfited from the contest, we surrender 
these our loyal friends and brethren to exile, 
confiscation, and death. 

No, fellow-citizens, there remains no alter- 



12 



SPEECH OF HON. B. F. THOMAS. 



native but a short and vigorous, or a pro- 
tracted and languishing prosecution of the 
war. Shall it be the first, or shall it be the 
last ? Will you let it go down, a legacy of 
sacrifice and sorrow to your children, or will 
you not rather finish it this very year? 
You can if you will ; you have the means 
and the men, if you but choose to employ 
them. I rejoice to behold in this great out- 
pouring of the people — the old and the 
young, the rich and the poor, the bone and 
the sinew, the mind and the heart of the 
community — the assurance that you are de- 
termined, that as far as depends on you, the 
work shall be quickly done ; and in lieu of 
any words of exhortation on my part, which 
I know you do not need, let me give you a 
reminiscence from the time that tried men's 
souls, 

Boston, as you well know, was, in the 
year 1775 and a part of 1776, occupied by 
British troops, and besieged by the American 
army under Washington. The great ques- 
tion was how the enemy could be best as- 
sailed, and among the measures proposed 
was the bombardment of the town, then 
almost wholly built of wood. The richest 



man in Boston, John Hancock, was then 
President of the Continental Congress, and 
as such transmitted the orders of that body 
to Washington. " You will notice the reso- 
lution," said he in his letter, " relative to 
an attack on Boston. This passed after a 
'most serious debate in a committee of the 
whole house, and the execution was referred 
to you. May God croum your attempt with 
success ! I most heartily wish it, though 
individually I may be the greatest sufferer." 
The fact is, all his property consisted of real 
estate in Boston ; the destruction of the 
town would have made him a beggar. Fel- 
low-citizens he was the occupant of yonder 
house. Were he living, he might from his 
windows witness all this glorious sight ; his 
eyes would swim with tears of gratitude to 
Heaven, as he beheld yonder banner of the 
Union floating in the breeze ; his ears would 
drink with rapture the patriotic strains that 
have cheered us this afternoon. May the 
proceedings of this day and this hour be 
such, that his pure spirit, and that of all 
his sainted associates, the Adamses, and 
Franklin, and peerless Washington himself, 
may look down upon us with approbation ! 



SPEECH OF HON. B. F. THOMAS. 



Mr. President and Fellow-Citizens : 

If you could analyze the feelings of a can- 
dle upon being lit up just as the sun was 
going down, you would appreciate my feel- 
ings in succeeding New England's most ac- 
complished orator. But you neither expect, 
nor would you tolerate an elaborate speech. 
Indeed, if I consulted my own heart, my lips 
would be sealed. 

When the beauty of our Israel is slain on 
her high places ; when the sons of our love 
are perishing in loathsome dungeons ; when 
armed treason is battering the gates of the 
capital ; when the nation itself is struggling, 
gasping for the breath of its life, rhetoric, 



logic, eloquence, even, seem mean and pal- 
try. Nothing, indeed, is eloquent but the 
roar of the cannon and the crack of the rifle 

— nothing logical but the sword and the 
bayonet. 

The issues before the country are of life 
or death, glory or shame, order or anarchy, 
union or chaos, a nation or a Mexico. And 
in this hour of awful peril there is for us 
but one hope, one way of salvation ; and 
that is to subdue armed rebellion by arms, 

— to overwhelm it by superior force on the 
field of battle. 

Processions and banners, touching allu- 
sions to Bunker Hill and Faneuil Hall, sen- 



SPEECH OF HON. B. F. THOMAS. 



13 



tiraental resolutions, proclamations begin- 
ning and ending in words, bills of confisca- 
tion and emancipation, after much travail, 
utterly still born, won't do the work. If 
you mean to save the country, you have got 
to fight for it. The negro can't do it for 
you. Providence won't do it for you, un- 
less you put your shoulders to the wheel. 
You have got to work out your own sal- 
vation, — in this case, "without fear or 
trembling." 

The only alternative is to sue for peace 
and submit to dissolution ; to betray the 
sublime trust committed to us by God and 
our fathers, and to rot into dishonored graves 
at home. 

If this be so, men of Boston, — patriotic, 
self-sacrificing men, capable of living and 
dying for your country, — what wait you 
for ■? The path of duty lies open before 
you. Interest, duty, honor, patriotism, the 
sense of manhood, all point one way — that 
way leads to Richmond and to victory, — 
and through victory to Union and peace. 
Controversy as to the causes of the war, is 
useless now. Grumbling, carping criticism 
of the past is mean and disloyal now. Side 
issues, partizan or philanthropic, are moral 
treason now. They weaken and divide us 
in a struggle that requires all our wisdom, 
all our energy, all our strength, directed and 
converged to the single work and duty of 
subduing the foe in arms. Not a man, not 
a dollar, not a thought can be wasted on any 
other issue. Xow or never is the salvation 
of the country possible. Hard words won't 
do it, threats and curses won't do it, violence 
won't do it. Nothing will do it but superior 
physical force in the field, wielded with an 
energy all the more terrible because it is 
calm, and knows how to obey as well as to 
command. 

Fellow-citizens : We have cause for anx- 
iety, none for despair. AVe have under-esti- 
mated the strength and resources of our op- 
ponents. We have greatly under-estimated 
our own streufrth and resources. Rebellion 



has, we may believe, made its crowning 
efibrt ; its bucket has touched bottom. The 
water in our well is yet deep. We can main- 
tain a million men in the field, and on the 
sea five hundred ships of war. With these, 
twenty millions of intelligent, united, de- 
voted people can vindicate the integrity of 
the nation and defy a world in arms. 

If you would avoid intervention by foreign 
powers, the only way is to be prepared for it. 
Put your million of men into the field, and 
your five hundred ships upon your seas and 
rivers. Bear up the old flag, resolved to live 
under it, to conquer with it, or die beneath 
its folds. In an hour of your weakness other 
nations may intervene ; never, if you put forth 
your real strength, never. 

Would you consent to separation, to give 
up this glorious Union of your fathers, where 
will you draw the line ? Are the Gulf States 
only to be severed ? Your enemy will not 
consent to that division. Will you give up 
the Border States ? The Border States will 
not go. Let me say in the face of the men 
of Boston, that a nobler, truer, more patri- 
otic set of men the sun does not shine upon, 
than the Union men of the Border States. 
I feel that I know them, and I tell you they 
will not go. If finally driven from you, no 
man can say how much of the Great A\ est 
would go with them, or where the ultimate 
line of division would fall. 

[Mr. Thomas here enlarged upon the geo- 
graphical and commercial ties which bound 
the West to the South, and said there is no 
safety for us but in clinging to the Union as 
it was and the Constitution as it is.] 

Let us be manly, be just, be tolerant. It 
is the» easiest thing in the world to find fault, 
but not the wisest thing. In conducting war 
upon so vast a scale, and requiring so many 
and varied agencies, mistakes and blunders 
will be made. The race is not always to the 
swift, nor the battle to the strong. We have 
a great and powerful people, and at their 
head an upright, conscientious, unselfish, 
conservative Chief Magistrate. Let us work 



14 



SPEECH OF HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 



and not grumble. Let us labor and not faint. 
It was the prayer of the great statesman 
of New England, that when his eyes should 
turn to behold for the last time the sun in 
heaven, he might not see him shining on the 
broken and dishonored fragments of a once 
glorious Union. Once glorious ; with tears 
wash out or with fire burn out the word, 



and write /oreyer glorious, born out of tribu- 
lation and suffering in another, an immortal 
life. When our eyes shall turn, to behold 
for the last time the sun in heaven, may we 
see its rays illumining and kindling every 
star and stripe of that banner which, like 
the robe of our divine Master, was wr ought 
without a seam. 



SPEECH OF HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 



I AM here, fellow-citizens, at short notice, 
and I hope to make a short speech. Would 
to Heaven that I could make it as short, as 
sharp, and as burning, as the battle must 
now be which is at length to bring back 
peace to our afflicted land ! Would to Heav- 
en that I could say anything or do anything 
which might contribute to the success of this 
occasion and of the cause which it is de- 
signed to promote ! It is a time when every 
one of us should ask himself, day by day, 
and night by night, at morning and at even- 
ing and at noonday, " AVhat can I say, or 
what can I do, for my country and for those 
who are engaged in its defence ? " 

Yet 1 cannot help feeling how powerless 
are any mere empty words in presence of 
such a multitude as this, and still more in 
presence of such events as those which have 
called us together. The scene around us, 
and the sounds which have attended it, are 
more eloquent and more impressive than any 
human oratory. The rolling drum, the 
pealing bells, the tramp of marching battal- 
ions, the shouts of surging multitudes, these 
are the only sounds to-day which seem to fill 
or satisfy the ear ; — and the only adequate 
words which the vocabulary of American 
Patriotism can supply for such an hour as 
this are, " Eecruit, enlist, gird on your ar- 
mor and go forth to the rescue of our breth- 
ren in the field, and to the deliverance of 
our beloved country." 

What else can any one say ? Every form 



of argument and of appeal has been ex- 
hausted. It is vain to review the past ; we 
cannot recall it. It is vain to speculate on 
the future ; we cannot penetrate its hidden 
depths. It is vain, and worse than vain, to 
criticise and cavil about the present. We 
must have confidence in somebody. We 
must not only trust in God, but we must 
trust in the Government which is over us, 
and in the generals whom that government 
has commissioned. Eor one, I mean to hold 
fast my faith in them all — Halleck, Mc- 
Clellan, Pope, McDowell, Burnside, Banks, 
and all the rest — until something besides 
bad fortune, or malignant rumor, or base 
suspicions, shall have occurred to shake it. 

Meantime we must not shut our eyes to 
the real state of the case. The stern and 
solemn fact is before us, that our country 
has now been engaged for more than a year 
past in one of the fiercest and bloodiest wars 
which the world has ever witnessed. The 
stern and solemn fact is before us, that 
three quarters of a million of the loyal men 
of the land have been found inadequate to 
overcome the wanton and wicked rebellion 
which has lifted its parricidal hands against 
the nation. The stern and solemn fact is 
before us, that though so many glorious suc- 
cesses have been accomplished, and so many 
deeds of heroic daring performed, our gallant 
army has recently encountered a series of 
checks and reverses which have once more 
put almost everything in peril. The stern 



SPEECH OF HON. ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 



15 



and startling fact is before us and upon us, 
that the President has been constrained to 
call for twice 300,000 more men to rescue us 
from defeat, and to give us a hope of finish- 
ing successfully the Herculean labor of re- 
storing the national authority. 

Who can hesitate for a moment what an- 
swer shall be given to this call ? Who can 
hesitate for a moment to say, that everything 
which is needed, everything which is asked 
for in such an emergency, shall be supplied, 
to the last man and the last dollar, — even 
though another 300,000, and still another, 
should be demanded hereafter ? 

I rejoice, my friends, to be able to bear 
witness to the feeling which exists in some 
other parts of our Commonwealth and of our 
country. Absent from home for sis weeks 
past, I have visited more than one of our 
sister States of the North. At BuflFalo, I 
was in company with some of my old con- 
servative friends, such as the late Governor 
of New York, AYashington Hunt, and the 
late President of the United States, Millard 
Fillmore. The best illustration of their 
views is found in the fact that the patriotic 
ex-President is in actual command of the 
Home Guard of that beautiful Lake City, 
and is seldom or never absent from their 
evening drills. I was at Niagara ; but not 
even the roaring of that mighty cataract 
could drown the cries of the country strug- 
gling in the rapids of this gigantic rebellion, 
and a new and noble regiment w^as just be- 
ginning to be organized there, which has 
now already taken up its march for the 
Potomac. 

Standing at Saratoga on the piazza of one 
of the hotels, with the present worthy Gov- 
ernor of New York, just at the moment when 
the order for the new draft was first promul- 
gated, he said to me, " The North has not 
yet put forth a quarter of its strength. It 
must now put forth its whole strength." 
And since the words were uttered, no less 
than fifty new regiments have been organized 
in the Empire State, and no less than seven- 



teen of them are already under marching 
orders for Washington. 

At West Point, I had the privilege of 
passing a portion of several days in company 
with our ever-honored veteran chieftain, — 
Winfield Scott ; and though I may not quote 
any words of private conversation, I did not 
leave him without the undoubting assurance, 
not only that the warmest wish of his still 
glowing heart was that the new levies of six 
hundred thousand men should be promptly 
supplied, but that the sober conviction of his 
judgment was that with these reinforcements 
promptly supplied, we could scatter the Con- 
federate army, scare out their infernal gue- 
rilla hordes, and finish the war triumphantly 
at no distant day. 

There, too, I met the generous and true- 
hearted Crittenden. I accompanied him to 
the camp of the Cadets, and saw the emotion 
with which he grasped the hand of the young 
Kentuckians who clustered around him. One 
of them was a son of that noble preacher and 
patriot, Robert J. Breckenridge, of Danville, 
and another, whose name I am ashamed to 
have forgotten, but which history will not 
forget, was a young Keutuckian of only six- 
teen years of age, who, having been already 
wounded while serving as a volunteer at the 
battle of Shiloh, had now come to prepare 
for future responsibilities by studying the 
science of war. 

All honor from this great assembly on 
Boston Common to these loyal and patriotic 
men of the Border States, who have endured 
so many of the worst hardships and sharpest 
trials of this terrible struggle, and who have 
still been found faithful among the faithless. 

Nor have I been without some recent op- 
portunity of observing what is going on in a 
remote part of our own Commonwealth. No 
sooner had I entered her limits than I was 
called on to address a war meeting in one of 
the lovely villages of Berkshire. At Pitts- 
field, too, I visited the camp of an almost 
completed regiment. Everywhere the flag 
was flying, everywhere the drums were 



16 



SPEECH OF HON. EOBERT C. WINTHROP. 



beating, everywhere the alarm hell was 
ringing. And what else — what else can we 
do ? What else — what else can we say hut 
*' enlist, recruit, gird yourselves for the 
battle ! " For myself, clinging t' ^he hope 
of adjustment to the last moment ; hoping 
and praying, as I have done, that the policy 
of man or the good Providence of God might 
still open a door of escape from this bloody 
arbitrament of a most unnatural and abhor- 
rent family quarrel ; and holding myself 
ever open to conviction, even now, if any 
way of reconciliation and restoration should 
present itself — I can see, as the case now 
stands, nothing, nothing whatever to be done, 
but to put forth our whole strength, to sum- 
mon up all the energy we possess, and to 
overcome and overwhelm this rebellion by 
every means in our power. 

Boston, I need not say, is alive to the 
emergency. Though I have been at home 
little more than four-and-twenty hours, I 
have seen enough at every corner of the 
street, I see enough before me at this mo- 
ment, to assure me that all will be right 
with her. New England expects every man 
to do his duty, and the capital of New Eng- 
land will not be wanting to the call. Let 
Suffolk and Esses, and Norfolk and Worces- 
ter, and Plymouth and Bristol, and Berkshire 
and old Hampshire emulate each other, as 
they are now doing, in furnishing their full 
quota, in anticipation of any draft, and his- 
tory will still record of old Massachusetts, 
that she was second to no other State in 
defending that Union, which all the world 
knows she was second to no other State in 
establishing. 

In conclusion, let us all remember, my 
friends, that it is the Union, and nothing 
more nor less nor other than the Union, for 
which we are contending. Let us keep ever 
in mind those excellent words of Mr. Seward, 
that it is enough now for us to strain every 
nerve in putting down the Demon of Rebel- 
lion, without stopping to quarrel among our- 
selves about any lesser demons, whether im- 
aginary or real. 

Let us keep ever in mind that noble and 
still more recent and emphatic declaration 



of our patriotic President, that if there be 
any man who would not save the Union 
unless he could either destroy or save some- 
thing besides the Union — no matter what 
it is — he is not of that man's party. 

Let us remember that we are not engaged 
in a war of the North against the South, but 
a war of the Nation against those who have 
risen up to destroy it. Let us keep our eyes 
and our hearts steadily fixed upon the old 
flag of our fathers, — the same to-day as 
when it was first lifted in triumph at Sara- 
toga, or first struck down in madness at 
Sumter. That flag tells our whole story. 
We must do whatever we do, and whatever 
is necessary to be done, with the paramount 
purpose of preserving it, untorn and untar- 
nished, in all its radiance and in all its just 
significance. We must be true to every tint 
of its red, white, and blue. Behold it at 
this moment streaming from every window 
and watch-tower and cupola of our fair city. 
It has a star for every State. Let us resolve 
that there shall still be a State for every star. 
Let this be our watchword, in speech and in 
song, and still more in the whole civil and 
military policy of the war, — "A Star for 
EVERY State, and a State for every 
Star," — and by the blessing of God, and 
our own strong arms, we may once more see 
that flag waving in triumph from the Atlan- 
tic to the Pacific. 

But let us not forget that the time is short 
— that what we have to do must be done 
quickly ; and let us make a short, sharp, 
strenuous efi^ort, and finish the work at what- 
ever immediate sacrifice of treasure or of 
blood. We owe it to ourselves, we owe it 
to all the world, to bring this terrible strug- 
gle to a decisive issue with the least possible 
delay. " Now or never," was the legend 
upon one of the banners which just caught 
my eye. It is now or never with the Union; 
now or never with the Constitution ; now or 
never with the wide arch of our ranged Ee- 
public. Let us take a lesson of desperate 
energy from the rebels themselves, — yes, or 
from the Prince of Eebels, as he cries to his 
apostate host in the immortal epic, "Awake, 
arise, or be forever fallen." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 703 123 1 



t)&ixnsX\^9 



